Editing Job Corps (section)

===Heritage Foundation===
In 2009, during the [[Presidency of Barack Obama|Obama administration]], the conservative [[think-tank]], [[The Heritage Foundation]], described the program's 40-year history as a "record of failure" -- citing specific findings from that Mathematica journal article, including that Job Corps participants were less likely than non-participants to "earn a high school diploma"; not any more likely to complete, or even attend, college; and earnings of Job Corps participants were essentially the same as a "control group" of similar non-participants.<ref name="failure_2009_05_05_heritage_org" />

In their 2009 critique, additionally citing a 2001 Mathematica study, the Heritage Foundation noted that income gains for participants (vs. comparable non-participants) was "never more than $25.20" per week,<ref name="failure_2009_05_05_heritage_org" /> while they cited a 2003 Mathematica study (withheld from the public by the government until 2006) as indicating negative impacts on childless female participants' incomes from 1998 through 2001.<ref name="failure_2009_05_05_heritage_org" /> 

Complaining that Job Corps fails to "substantially raise the wages of participants" -- at a cost of "$25,000 per participant" for an eight-month "average participation period" -- the Heritage Foundation described the agency as "a waste of taxpayers' dollars," and "an ideal candidate" to be on "the budget chopping block."<ref name="failure_2009_05_05_heritage_org" />